Flotation processes are presently well known and accelerate the gravity separation of the lighter or less dense dispersed phase of which the droplets interact with the gas bubbles to form a complex, in which the apparent specific gravity is significantly less than that of the dispersed phase.
In practice these processes permit good yields of about 85% for a hydrocarbon dispersed in an aqueous phase. However the heretofore known flotation processes do not allow exceeding this approximate magnitude and seem to hit a ceiling less than 90%. In spite of this relatively high yield, this is a limitation which represents a substantial difficulty, since in many applications more than 10% of the disperse phase is left in the continuous phase, so that frequently a second processing stage is required which depends on different principles and which very often is quite costly. Accordingly any increase, even slight, that is achieved in the vicinity of this practical limit may prove to be economically highly significant.